7 weeks then we will hear the pitter-patter of tiny feet!

This weeks marks 33 weeks of our pregnancy.
I honestly can not believe how fast it is going by, soon we will have a little baby in our arms, scarily exciting!

A couple of weeks ago my mum and girlfriend threw a baby shower for me. It was a lovely day! Nothing was missed. Mum had made sure we had everything for it. Food, drinks, decorations and good company. The works really!
We started at about 2pm and went through till about 4.30pm. Sarah had a couple of games organised so we played them. One was guessing the Weight, Sex and Birthday of Baby Dunne. I have a record of that now and will award the closest guess. The other was a guess the celebrity and their children game, which I must say was rather tough for me, I obviously do not read enough gossip magazines!
I got to open some wonderful gifts that will come in so handy when Baby Dunne arrives! We were lucky enough to get everything from Cotton wool balls, nappies and creams to a wonderful baby carrier and Oioi nappy bag, which is very luxurious, and everything in between like clothes and a few toys.
We were very spoiled!

Beautiful Table decorations by Mum 

My wonderful mother! Love you mum xx

Sarah - Party Planner extraordinaire

My Sister - Sarah

Lovely cousin and pregnancy go to person - Kylie

The two preggies - Emma

Baby has been very busy. I get a lot of movements these days. I am starting to be able to tell that baby is running out of room in there because I get a lot of very sharp kicks and movements that hurt a little as they hit nerves and other odd areas. Baby also gets the hiccups regularly which is an interesting feeling!

We had a scan last week as my placenta had been low-lying and the doctor wanted to check that it had moved before it got too late in the pregnancy.
Everything was all great. Baby is head down and ready to go!
The most special part of this scan was the little face we got to see and meet. It really bought home to us how close we really are.

Our smiley Baby Dunne

27 Weeks down - 13 to go

This week marks the 27th week of our pregnancy. I say "our" because I am not in this on my own. My poor husband gets his fair share of my symptoms! The toilet stops with tossing and turning in the night, the mood swings (I am not too bad, but bad enough for me!) and the baby brain!
He has been awesome through it all! He has catered to my every whim, desire and craving. He has pre-empted my need for a Snickers on more that one occasion and he has gotten up with me if I have felt little pain twinges or the dog needing to be let out during the night so I can sleep. He has been to many a Dr visit and sat through 2.5 hours of blood tests just this weekend gone, even though I said he didn't need to and that I would be o.k. (I do not do very well with blood tests, and have been known to faint in the past)
I am so grateful to have such a wonderful and loving husband and would surely struggle without him!


Baby is growing away and each week someone tells me "whoa you have grown a lot just over the weekend!". I can not see it myself, but I do notice that my wardrobe is dwindling very quickly! Thankfully the weather is warming up as it is easier and far more comfortable to be in long maxi dresses now.
The kicks and movements get stronger day by day and I am starting to notice them more often during the night. I have also noticed patterns of how and when they happen. Like on the train the in the morning after breakfast or after I have eaten something sugary. I love to lay in bed quietly on the weekend before my two boys wake up (Del and the dog - Oscar) and watch the baby move around and kick in my belly. It's quite strange to watch but also comforting at the same time. I have tried to video it a couple of times, but every time I do baby stops moving! I love watching Del watch it too. The wonderment in his eyes and his excitement thrill me! He will be such a wonderful Dad! He is reading stories and talking to baby as if it was already here!

We have nearly completed the Nursery. A visit to Ikea and some online shopping done and it is coming together in a Baby Jungle Animals theme.


I have no real complaints other than heartburn and indigestion after nearly every meal and when I lay down at night, but that is nothing that a Rennie or a bottle of Mylanta by the bed can't fix! The hay fever season is kicking in and for me that is a struggle most years even being able to take something for it. This year I am unable to take anything that I know of at this stage, so will have to suffer through that. These would be my worst complaints really and by no means are they really that terrible in the scheme of things.


The time is going so quickly, it is hard to believe I am now in my third Trimester! Before we know it, it will be Christmas and then baby's arrival will sneak up on us in the weeks after!


Talk soon


Amy x

Me at 26 weeks - with a silly grin and all!

Baby Dunne's first video

Some people have been asking for ultrasound pictures from our recent 20 week scan, but they didn't really give us a good one. So Del finally managed to get the video into You Tube for me! I am shocking at getting this sort of thing to work! 


So here it is! There is sound but it is quite quiet so you may have to have the sound up a little bit to hear the sonographer talking. 

Baby's First Video


For those of you that are not really into watching ultrasound, I suggest you do not click the link.


Cheers


Amy

Half way through and there 3 months.

This week marked the halfway point of my pregnancy and also our first 3 months in our house!


It is truly amazing how time flies by so fast! I often find myself asking the question "how do we get it to slow down a little bit?" - when I figure out the answer I will be sure to let you know. 
I always look back and think how slowly time went while I was at school. How we wished and wished that it would hurry up and be the holidays, or that we were finishing school, or that I was older and here I am now asking for it to slow down.


Three months in the house has seen a few changes, like the furniture I posted about previously. We also got concrete for our driveway and side paths, something that I never thought I would be so happy about! It has reduced the dirt inside the house by a huge amount! I have also arranged for quotes for the window furnishings to be done, so that is the next item on the list for us to do. From a Porter Davis point of view, we have a 3 month "health check" of the house to be done by their maintenance men. So over the last while we have been keeping a list of any things that need fixing and adjusting within the house to be presented at the meeting with maintenance.
This morning we had the maintenance man come out and go over all the spots we thought needed sorting out, he pretty much agreed with all of them which is great so they will be done in the next few weeks apparently! Our list was fairly small I think because he was very accommodating with our cabinets above the fridge issue and agreed to have his guys take them down for us. Small wins! 


On Tuesday we had our 20 week scan. It all went well and I am going to try to post some video of it for those who would like to see, for others you may not and that is fine. 

The baby wouldn’t wake up for the scan at first and it was in the wrong position for a photo so the technician made me drink really cold water (3 glasses and quickly, so you can imagine my bladder after that!), eat something containing sugar and jump up and down to get it to move it into a better position, which it did and then paid me back for the wake up call for the rest of the day with kicks to my bladder! 

I also, had to have a blood test yesterday as my nephews had the “Slapped Cheek” virus which is in the family of scarlet fever and rubella. 
They will test me again in two weeks and see if the antibodies in my blood have changed at all. If they have, they will monitor the baby with ultrasound for the next 5 months and make sure there is no excess fluid build up or any type of anaemia, which is treatable. It is not detrimental to the cognitive health or development of the baby, which is good to know, just a little bit stressful for me for a day or so! 


That's about all the news we have for this week.


Amy

The new driveway

At 20 weeks Pregnant

P.S Video of baby would not work for me so I will save it till next time when Del can work it out for me!

Happiness and Joy..

Today was the first day I really felt the movements in my belly.


They weren't "those" types of movements either! They were movements that I have been waiting for, for the last 18 weeks, they are the movements that really confirm and set in stone about how my and our life is going to change in the very near future.
They have been explained to me as feeling like a butterfly flapping its wings in my belly, but to me its more like someone flicking me gently with a forefinger and thumb...maybe it is a boy?


Yes I am pregnant! And yes I am happy about it! (Why do people ask you that question?)


I discovered my pregnancy way back in mid May. I was 4 days late and thought my body was out of whack, which it was, but not in the way I had originally thought.
That day I was heading into work early and my husband was sleeping in as he had booked in for his driving license test that day. I figured it wouldn't hurt to do a test seeing as there was one in the cupboard. There I was sitting there with baited breathe to watch the two little pink lines come up. Oh.my.gosh!
At first I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or if it was really real. I figured I would shower and get ready for work whilst letting it sink in and get my head around it before I woke Del.
I suppose it was the most surreal thing to have happened to me so far in my life, and I imagine that it might possibly win the race against all the surreal things that might happen to me over my life in the future.
I was lost in feelings and emotions straight away.
I went in and woke Del and told him. He repeated over and over "Oh my god, oh my god" I had to ask him to stop saying it! He was making me feel frightened that he wasn't happy! Of course he was, albeit a little surprised.


So we managed to keep it quiet for the 3 months, but not without suspicions from those closest around us.
It was exciting so was hard to keep the lid on it!


I think when you get passed those first 12-13 weeks you realise just how extremely lucky you are. These little lives are so precious and fragile. We knew, once we were there, that we had to be the luckiest people around and we have not forgotten that all the way through. Every time I go to complain about a symptom I just remember all the people who never to got to where I am and I make sure to remember that I am lucky to feel as crappy as I do, or as tired or sore as I do. I am a lucky one. I am a blessed one. I thank the stars every day for that privilege.


I wanted to post a picture of my "bump" and I had my friend take a couple of me this afternoon, but they didn't come out as well as I had hoped and I just look pudgy rather than pregnant! We both blamed it on the top I am wearing (not the chocolate obsession I have had of late). So I will try again when I have something different on.


So yes, this blog is changing, as we are, each day.


The reason for this post today though, is because of my best friend and it is mostly for her also. 
Last week she got notification that she would receive her first little boy. An adopted Filipino child. 
The things that her and her husband have had to endure to try to have their own child and then to go on and adopt a child has been roller coaster ride that has included many a painful experience that bought a tear to my eye and many to theirs. But they fought through all the barriers, all the emotional and physical pains, all the red tape and bureaucracy to get to this point where they can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and the little boy that is to be their future. To continue to persevere through the heartache, pain and suffering along the way only proves to me that they are the most deserving and determined couple to become parents and rightly so.


Congratulations J&C! Nobody in the world deserves this as much as you do right now. We love you both and can't wait to meet/see our little "nephew".


Joy and happiness is in our house, I hope it is in yours too.


Amy

Moving in, sorting out and changing around

Yes yes.. I know....Slacker!
Things have been busy and times have been changing since the house was finished, so apologies for the delay in getting this post out.


You may have noticed that I have changed the title of my blog. The reason for this is that this blog will not just detail the story of the house and building of it, but also the story of our lives within its walls. 


So to recap, I will start back at the end of May around move in time.


The 26th of May was settlement day. We got up at mums after our last night of sleeping there, had a little breakfast then head off to our 9am meeting at the Porter Davis Offices. It was the weirdest thing ever really. One minute we didn't have a house the next minute we did! It was literally go through and sign a couple of forms then we were given the keys and that was it! DONE! It only took about half an hour!
So we headed back to mums to get things packed into the trailer so we could spend our first night in our new home.


We go to the house and it had started pouring with rain so we had to get everything off the trailer as quick as possible so it wouldn't get saturated! Spent the rest of the day unpacking and getting things organised in the house as much as possible. It was freezing that first night as our heating wasn't working yet and we had no TV so it was an early night to bed for us that first night.

Derek on our first night in the house - we had to sit on camp chairs!

The next morning I had the heating people come and fix the heating which was great! Warmth!
Some family friends came over to have a look and measure up for a gate that we were wanting built and also to show where we wanted the bathroom accessories hung on the walls.
Mum and I did a couple of trips to the storage unit and got what boxes we could carry and load into the car then unpacked them back at the house.
On Saturday morning we got up early and headed down to the Thrifty rental place to collect our moving van for the day. First stop was mum and dads to collect everything we had left there. My brother met us there and gave us a hand to get everything onto the truck and trailer. Then we went to the house to unload that and the boys set off to the storage unit to clear that out. 

We spent all day organising the house! It was exhausting, but we had so many helpers and we are so thankful for them!


Since that weekend, we have just plodded along doing bits and pieces. We received all our furniture that we had ordered back at Christmas time, in June. So that was fun to unwrap and put together and set up! here are some pics. (Quality is not great as they are off my phone)

New lights over the bench

Family Room

Lounge Room

Lounge Room

Theatre Room

That is about it for now really! I will have another post for you soon though so stay tuned!

The end is nigh..

This week will hopefully, fingers and toes crossed, see the end of the build. The plan on Thursday is to go and do our final inspection, then head to the office where we will sign over the house into our names, handover the final cheque and then we get our keys!
It is an exciting time for us, albeit strangely surreal and slightly stressful.
I feel completely under prepared and am battling with that fact that I really will miss living with Mum and Dad.  
It is like time has flown by and left us a little behind, leaving us running to catch up. 
I have arranged for time off work to get the new house sorted. I have the job of arranging to have certain things put in like the driveway, bath rails and other handyman type things. 
We have had a few quotes done for driveways, thus leaving our jaws on the floor with the cost of a few patches of concrete! Unbelievable! I really never thought I would pay over $5k for concrete.. and that is a good price around town.


This weekend was partly spent trying to pack up mum and dads and clear out the mounds of crap we have managed to accumulate in the 10 short months we have lived there. It is safe to say I did not get very far. I managed to throw out some shoes and magazines, not exactly overhaul I had hoped for. I had better crack the whip on myself in the next few evenings and really make a go of it.
There is so much to be done, I am at a loss of where to start so I am trying to just fly with it and get it done slowly and surely. I should win the race that way, or so the story goes.


There are things that I am greatly looking forward to in our new home;

• Cooking and baking in my lovely new kitchen
• Entertaining friends and family
• Curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book and a glass of wine (that is when the fireplace resumes it's spot back on the priority short list, it is off at the moment due to concrete taking all priority positions)
• Watching a film with my husband in his Theatre room (status of this is also currently backburner-ed for now) 
• Enjoying our new neighbours on our street and getting to know them.
• Having guests come to stay (Hint hint international/interstate friends and family!)
• Getting the house to the way we want it to be. This is a long long long term goal, but I still need to put it here, because I need to keep my eye firmly on this prize. 

People always tell us that they have been working on their houses for the entire time they have had them. My wish, although extremely naive and unrealistic, is to get it done as soon as possibly manageable. 

Clearly my reality is further from the reality of reality, but I have to set myself that goal or else we will be one the same as everybody else with unfinished houses. Obviously it will take time and money, there will be other hurdles to jump through and financial setbacks to make it difficult for us, but we will work away at it and hopefully, sooner rather than later, it will be done.

When that day comes I will be happily satisfied for 10 minutes then set about getting ready to redesign and start over again. Thus in turn possibly driving my husband to the brink of insanity or possible divorce. 

Hopefully just insanity. 

Peace out xx


P.S No pics this week sorry, I have not been able to take any lately. Next time I will have some moved in ones which will be way more exciting!

On the home stretch to our new home..

We are getting seriously close now!

I am feeling the excitment brewing in me but also dread at moving and unpacking and cleaning!

This last month PD have been putting the finishing touches in like, door handles, bathroom fixtures, floors, carpets (now there is a story in that, I will come back to it), flyscreens, downpipes and the list goes on. It has really come together now and it is looking great although still not feeling like home to us yet.
It is quite a strange feeling really, we know it is ours, but it really does not feel like it is ours. I think it is because we have not seen our "stuff" in it or really anybodies "stuff" in it. So it has been hard to imagine a little bit. I am 100% sure that feeling will change the minute we have the keys in our hot little hands!

The carpet issue:

Last week after Easter, I popped over on my way to work one morning to check out what was happening and I found that there were tradies swarming over our house.. always a delight! We had the plumbers finishing fit offs and also the carpet layers in there laying the underlay. 
On my way out I noticed the rolls of carpet in the van. I had a look and thought.. "that is not our carpet, I hope they don't lay that!" I was going to say something to the fellas, but I didnt feel it was my place and I figured it might have been another PD house in the estate's job that they were going to go to after laying our underlay. So I went on my merry way to work and did not really think much else of it.
On Friday, Mr. CM called to talk to me and lock in a time to go and do pre-PCI inspection on the following Tuesday. As I was talking away to him on the phone I suddenly thought of the carpet and the conversation went something like this: me - "Oh by the way, what sort of colour is the carpet that has been laid?" Mr.CM - "ahh its a beige sort of colour, quite light, why?" me-"ahhh yeah that is not our carpet!" Mr. CM - "What?" me- "yeah we didnt order that, we ordered and dark brown/grey colour and one that is not cut pile as well" Mr. CM - " Oh sh*t! Well I will get on to the carpet people and get it sorted out."
Pretty funny really! We were just glad that all our paperwork says the correct things and we knew that we were not at fault! 

On Tuesday, we met with "B", a new SS starting with PD, as Mr. CM had double booked himself. At first I was a little annoyed about it, but then B really showed us he was very very good at his job. He picked up on things like thin paint work and bad brush strokes that we could not even see. I guess being new, he was pretty keen to impress, which was a bonus for us. We went over the house with a very fine toothed comb looking for defects and blemishes. We found quite a number of paint touch ups and a few other bits and pieces, but obviously, the major ones were the carpet balls up and a damp exterior wall. So not too bad over all, it took hours though! 
Mr. CM came when we were about half way through so that was good. We discussed the carpet issue again. Turns out that the guys had laid the carpet which had been ordered for a PD house being built further up the road from ours and the carpet people had mixed it all up. PD were happy that they were not at fault and so were we.
The carpet people then proceeded (through PD) to try and convince us to keep the carpet that had been laid and give us $1000 credit for their store! HA! What a joke! Especially considering we had already paid over $2k to upgrade ours and what the heck were we going to do with a store credit? No thanks, pull up your mistake and relay it correctly! Mr. CM and B thought it was ridiculous also, but they have to ask anyway!

So now the plan is that this week PD will have the BSS Independant Quality inspection, then we will arrange a PCI inspection (Practical Completion Inspection) with us. At this we will go over everything we made on the pre-pci inspection last week and make sure it has all been rectified. If we are happy we can settle and handover that day or we can make sure they get everything sorted then do settlement and handover a few days later!

It is hard believe we are so close! Last year when we started the whole charade it seemed so far away...but here we are nearly in our brand new home.. I like the sound of that!

Calm and Serenit-ised.

Hi All,

A fair bit has been happening really. Issues from previous posts have been resolved, to an extent that both parties are happy with, and I am feeling the serenity at the moment (With house building that is....on other levels not so serenit-ised, but the calm is coming there too!)
Joy. Wonderous joy... lets hope it lasts.

So now we are at full lock up stage. This brings us the good and the bad.
Good: no one can steal (as much) from our build site and slow it down.
Bad: We can't get in anymore and we definitely would not make good thief's as we are terrible at even trying to break in! (joke)

Completed Items Checklist

• Kitchen benches and cupboards installed - Check (although, one cupboard is still missing a door. Not sure what is going on there!)
• Pretty much all of the painting is completed at this stage, just touch ups towards the end now - Check
• Tiles are in in the laundry, en suite, powder and bathroom - Check (They look awesome I might add)
• Doors are painted and hung - Check
• Garage roof on and tiled - Check
• render started - Half-a-check

So we are getting there now. We had a meeting with Mr. Construction Manager on Monday morning. He seems to be a pretty good bloke who likes a good ol'chat!
He had all good news for us, which was rather pleasing and we are heading for a finish around the first or second week of May, provided the smooth travelling continues on for the next month. Mr. CM told us that he is booking everything in now and we will have a pre-PCI in a couple of weeks.
This is where we go over the house with him with a fine tooth comb and pick out anything we are unhappy with. He then goes back to the tradies and has them tidy up all the issues. Once completed we have the "real" PCI and double check again. Hopefully that one supersedes our expectations and we can go for occupancy certificate and then settlement, once we are ultimately happy.
Mr. CM seems to be pretty keen to please, which both amuses us and eases our minds.

We have two jobs to do for him at the moment. The first one being; pick a new door handle. Unfortunately due to the door we have chosen, what we had originally planned to use, a pull handle, will not work. I am disappointed but Mr. CM explained the reasons behind this and it all made sense, especially seeing as we would like a securely locking house! Apparently, we should have been told this at colours.. well whaddya know! I am sure everyone remembers the saga we had at had a colours with her, F the F'n... well you know...no need to repeat myself is there?
Anyway, because Mr. CM is awesome, he has told us to email him which handle/lock we want to put on and he will ring Bowens Hardware and tell them we will come in directly to pick it up and get it at the PD price, then we will give it to him and he will have his carpenter put it on for us. Sweet. I think this also saves him and our lovely CSC some paperwork, leaving everyone happy.
The second job is; removal of spare bricks. We can have as many as we want we just have to move them out of our garage so the plasterers can come in and plaster the ceiling of the garage and the door can be installed. So that will be tonight's job, lugging bricks down to the backyard for use later on. 

We are starting to get excited and nervous now! We are also trying to come to terms with the fact that we have to move out of mum and dads and re-learn how to run a household, cook, clean and talk to each other again. We have been pretty spoilt over the last while, so it WILL be tough!

Last week was also a special week for us. We celebrated our first year of marriage! We spoiled each other with a gift and D spoiled me by booking a hotel over night in the city and going to a lovely asian-fusion themed restaurant for dinner. Just lovely and we could not be happier!

Some images for your viewing pleasure



Kitchen



En Suite

Laundry

Feature wall in his room



Feature wall in her room



Abhorrent front door colour



The anniversary drinks



Issues Management...how much more is there to manage? Will I manage to manage it?

Ok so I have, or I should say had, calmed down from last weeks situation, but a new one has arisen and I am back to stressed out brain again...boo to me.
I'll back track to last week's issues first and let you know the out come.
I received the call from our CSC, K, she was so calm and helped me to feel a lot calmer just by talking to her. 
In my plans, I have two copies of them. The first set, the contract drawings, which were the original ones we signed off on and agreed too had the facade fully rendered. Leaving us with pretty much no argument, because we signed off on them. Also appearing on those is the moulding. In the second set, post contract variation drawings, the moulding disappears. When I asked why, K went back to her emails from the developer and discovered that the mouldings were not approved by them and she concluded that the guys who do the drawings had just taken them off. There was no notification to us that this was happening, it just happened. 
So by the end of our phone conversation we each had a task. I was to write to the developer and ask about why the moulding was not approved and removed and if we could have a different type of moulding on the house if any. K's task was to speak to our SS and see if there was any way at all possible to not have the second story rendered. 
I got to writing and drafted an email to the Design people at our estate. They called me back within a couple of days and I asked them to forward on their thoughts to K via email and cc me in also.
This is their response:

Hello K

Re: Lot 85 C Dve - Front Facade

We received a request from your client Amy to add a moulding to the Front Façade between the Ground and First Floor rendered sections, per the image attached. The DAP approves this moulding on condition that it has a simple, rectangular profile.

We would also accept (encourage) one section of face brick and one of render per the image, to better reduce the dominance of a single material (render) to the façade.

I have CC’d Amy (at her request) and K D on this email.

(all names have been removed for privacy)

And there you have it. We can have it!  I was told that the design guys from the developers HAD told PD that we COULD most definitely have the moulding, provided it was a rectangular shape (otherwise it makes the house look like a "period" home) or they could just remove it, so without consultation PD just removed it. We drove around the estate that night, because we had sworn we had seen other houses with the moulding on them, we were right. We found two houses with moulding on them, one of which looked like a "period" home. How interesting?

After finally getting hold of K, who had been in training sessions all week, she let me know that there was no way we could not render the second story. That the brickwork had been done for render and there was no way to change it, but they were putting the moulding back on and it was in drawings as we spoke being fixed. Joy! I also asked if we would have to pay for this moulding, she could not answer as she was not sure, but I plan to hold fast on the fact that I have already paid for that and will not be paying for it a second time.

Since all this has come to light, Derek and I have decided to change the colour of the render and moulding, PD are letting us do so which is great (as they should really).  So this weekend we trudged back down to Bunnings to re-look at Dulux colour selections again. We decided on a similar colour for the render, but decided to go a lighter colour on the moulding than we had originally chosen. Also, with the render we decided to just stay with the one colour all over.

So we are OK with it all now. Phew, thankfully that is pretty much sorted and dealt with.

Onto the issue of this week!

Whilst down at the house yesterday we discovered our kitchen cabinetry has been delivered! Yay I was so so so excited, so was Derek, but I am pretty sure I was way more excited than him!

So we get in to have a closer look at them. 

I am opening and closing drawers and cupboards, then realise that they aren't exactly what we thought they would be. They did not have the soft closing mechanism on them. WTF?

I could not believe it! We had specifically asked for this! We had had issues about it way back when, when we had had that little snot face colour chick telling us we had to do them at tender and she was not able to help us with it (which was complete BS according to our CSC).

Grrrr..

This morning I get in bright and early to work to check through my contracts and variation on contract docs. Whaddya know? Its not bloody in there!!! WTF?

So I go through my emails back and forward with K and find that we had discussed it before our contract meeting and it was supposed to be put in our contract, it wasn't. Although, we are fairly sure that at our contract meeting we discussed it again, because I had printed off that email and we had gone through it at the appointment. 

Somewhere along the way it has fallen off the list and we all have missed it.

So this morning poor K has copped another call from me. Lets hope this one can be fixed and have a happy ending like the last one.

Again with the fingers crossed peeps...

On a brighter note, our stairs have been installed and so has some of the skirting boards and architrave's. The doors have also started to be hung, although  Dels aren't as well hung.....in his theatre room that is! (Ha ha I could not help myself!) They have a great big gap in the middle, hopefully this will be fixed up. 

Anyway, I am off to try and not eat some chocolate and try not to think too much till I hear more..

House with scaff removed

From the front

Skirting and Architrave's

Stairs

Del at the top of the stairs

and with the good, comes the bad

So I figure our build has been pretty awesome.. yeah it has.....that is until today.
It is not something completely bad, but it is something I am most definitely disappointed in.


Firstly though, lets go through the good things that have been happening and leave the bad things till last.


Since my last post quite a bit has been happening. 
Thursday-week ago Derek and I went down to look through the house again. It still looked pretty much the same as it had in my last post, but we had received the bill for the "lock-up" stage and we wanted to make any notes to talk to our SS about before we paid the bill. We had a look around and decided we would call our SS and arrange a walk through. Sweet.
Saturday lunchtime we were in the area so we decided to drive by again. To our surprise the house was a hive of activity! There were at least six guys going "hell for leather" putting up our plaster! 
We were shocked and amazed at the same time. The speed with which this was happening was a-maze-ing! In the 42 hours since our previous visit they had plastered the WHOLE house! Upstairs and downstairs! All 28 squares of it!
We were excited about it, but also a little disappointed that we had not had time to go on our walk through with the SS before the plastering was up.
The rooms are now definable and it looks BIG! We moved on from the disappointment of the plaster being up and just got plain old excited. The walls were in. The same walls that would now hold our memories, hear our whispers and see our joys and sadness's. That surely was something to to be pleased about.
Over the past week we have received our bi-fold doors to our alfresco area and the cornices have been installed, making each room look cleaner and more finished.


All in all happiness was all around us till yesterday, but more so this morning.
Yesterday, I received a call from the Construction Manager (our SS's boss). He left a message on my voicemail. I am thinking "Uh-Oh whats wrong"? As it turned out though it was not too scary-a phone call, our house was not going to fall down or anything to that effect. Mr. CM, we'll call him, was calling to let us know that our SS was leaving us and moving onto a new job in a higher role. Great for him! Not so great for us. We really liked him, as his boss called him, he was abit of a "gun" at his job. He has been a great guy and kept things really moving along with our build. He was not the greatest at calling and checking in, but whenever I called him he was open and honest and good at helping us to understand what the process was. So yes, we are sad about losing his hard working "gun" attitude, but we also wish him all the best in his next venture. So now for us, we are being looked after by Mr. CM. Being that he is the boss and sounds like a stand up guy on the phone, I have confidence that we will keep moving in the direction we have been going.
Now onto the disappointment of the day.
This morning we met with our SS, for the last time, to have a walk through and a chat about what is happening over the next while.
It was peachy keen for most of the visit. We asked questions and he answered them. 
We found that the stair builders are due in this week to put in our stair case, the scaffolding outside will be removed today or tomorrow, the front yard will be cleaned up and all the trash removed, the kitchen is being delivered over the next week or so and the guy who hangs all the doors will also be in. Our painter and tiler have both been booked, which is great because they are the guys our SS uses all the time and he tells us he has never had any issues with their work, very pleasing to hear that these are all pre-booked and come highly recommended.
We were talking about the brick cleaning on the second story and SS was telling us that had been done. So I asked the question, "how come the bricks around our bedroom window don't look like they have been cleaned?" "because they are due to be rendered" "ah, no I don't think so, only the portico and the lower story area around the study windows should be rendered"
"oh, well that is not what it says in your plans..."
Ok people, who wants to guess what is happening in my head right now???
A massive amount of swear words is what! 
So we get out our plans from his Ute, and he is right, according to the plans both sections are rendered! 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Way to dampen what was going so, so well. 
We discuss it for awhile with him. We tell him that we had to pick a colour for the moulding, which he tells us we do not have, although in the colour sheet it says there is moulding. We show him the picture of the facade we have chosen and paid for. I ask, can we just not render it? He says no we can't because the bricking is done differently under render. Boo. The end of the conversation is that we have to chase it up with our CSC and talk to her then let him know and he will make sure it will get fixed as much as he can before he finishes up on Thursday. So, I now need to find out; 
- have we paid for the moulding? If yes, lets get it put on. 
- Then can we change the colour of the second story render? If yes, great, but back to the colour wheel. If no, CRAP! I do not know what we are going to do. I don't think we want the whole front covered in "Congo Capture".
We paid for the "Ashmont" facade so you would imagine it would look like the picture you have picked it from, yes? I mean otherwise we would have chosen to render it all, right?
To make sense of what I am talking about see pic below:

As you can see, it will totally change the look of the house. Massive sad face. 
I am now waiting on a call from our CSC, so that we can discuss how to move forward from this and what will happen next.


On a brighter note, below are some photos of what the house looks like inside now. The part that we are currently happy with!

Looking from the Front Door through the house to the Theatre Room

The Kitchen area

Derek with Oscar and the view looking back towards the front door

The lounge

Our bi-fold doors, still yet to be stained

The bi-folds and you will notice the cornices are in

On this note I am going to sign off and sulk at my desk until our CSC calls me back and we can come up with a way to keep everyone, (somewhat) happy, fingers crossed.


Ax